A couple of Twitter posts from Timbers owner Merritt Paulson early last week had a tongue-in-cheek feel towards Sounders boss Schmid and he responded with a fairly clever comeback suggesting the Cascadia rivals had their minds on matters other than soccer.

Paulson wrote the following on the same day the Timbers played Seattle in Tucson: "Sampling new JWF (Jeld-Wen Field) food for this yr: loaded tater tots, meat pie and olympic provisions charcuterie boxes. All good.."

Before adding: "If sigi knew we had sampling here would he have made game this morning?? I kid, I kid "

Schmid retorted to the Seattle Times: "Merritt is an adult. He's responsible for his actions.

"It's good to see that food is a very important part of Portland's stadium capabilities."